The Eternal Blue Sky

Epic Character-Driven Space Opera from the Author of Virtual Fire and The Speed of Darkness In the distant future, Earthlings flee their despoiled homeworld in a series of diasporas. The wealthiest among them colonize Tara and Athena, the galaxy's Edens, while charities dump the poor on barely habitable rocks. As Tara and Athena's power grows, the two First Exodus superpowers establish rival empires, waging war against each other and conquering the peaceful worlds of later exoduses, enslaving their populations through money, politics, and brute military force. On the Third Exodus hippie planet Cascadia, a world orbited by two moons, mothers bear only twins. Orphaned at birth, Mitka Rabinowitz grows up an outsider, a "singlet" obsessed with chess, Genghis Khan, and the history of warfare. One day, he will leave Cascadia, enroll in the Athenan Naval Academy, fall in love with Shoshanna Keeney, and become the Athenan League's greatest military strategist. Light-years from Cascadia, on the wealthy First Exodus planet Tara, John Harvard, like all the Taran children of his generation, will be long-lived, brilliant, and beautiful. Genetic enhancements ensure their perfection, yet they share a secret flaw. One day, John will seek to satisfy their insatiable desires through a campaign of planetary conquests and the establishment of an empire rivaling the Athenan League. Mitka Rabinowitz, the maverick military genius, and John Harvard, the Brahmin born to rule, engage in a lifelong, galaxy-spanning duel of occupations and liberations, strategies and deceptions, victories and defeats. Their paths will lead them to the world humanity has fled: Earth, now known as Magnolia, where the nomadic inheritors of the Mongol Empire still roam the despoiled planet's last great forest. Can Mitka, Shoshanna, two old-school Marines, a teenage Magnolian princess descended from Genghis Khan, and Kato, a heroic pit bull terrier, turn the tide against Athena's narcissist politicians and Tara's genetically enhanced one-percenters? The answer will determine humanity's future among the stars. The Eternal Blue Sky foretells a future still beset by existential issues facing humanity in the 21st century: the entitlement of wealth, environmental degradation, and vain politicians who dream of empire. The novel explores the nature of evil and the moral compromises good people make to combat it. For fans of The Expanse series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Frank Herbert's Dune Saga, Ender's Game, Star Wars, A Game of Thrones, Jack Weatherford's nonfiction books about Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire, and character-driven literary and military science fiction.